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Red Dwarf is a British science fiction sitcom (" Britcom" in the U.S.), created and originally written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor.
It parodies most (if not all) of the sub-genres of science fiction but is first and foremost an 'odd couple' type comedy. The first series aired on BBC2 in 1988. Seven further series have so far been produced, and a film is currently in production. The idea was originally developed from the sketches introduced on Grant and Naylor's 1984 BBC Radio 4 show called "Son of Cliché".
Rob Grant and Doug Naylor wrote the first six series together, before Grant left in 19961996 was a leap year starting on Monday (see link for calendar), and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty''. Events January January 5 Hamas operative Yahya Ayyash is killed by an Israeli-planted booby-trapped cell phone Jan leaving Naylor to write the next two with a series of new and less well-known writers, notably Paul Alexander .
Series I and II were BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation BBC is primarily a national publicly-funded broadcaster based in the United Kingdom, which also has some international services. Some of the international services (such as BBC cable TV in America, Canada and elsewhere productions, series III was made by Paul Jackson Productions, and all subsequent series were made by Grant Naylor Productions. In practice all that changed were the names, although at the beginning of series IV production moved from the BBC's ManchesterThis article is about the city in England. For alternative meanings, see Manchester (disambiguation). Manchester is a city in North West England, which in 2002 had a population of approximately 422,302. The city is situated in the centre of the large metr studios to Shepperton StudiosFilm history began at Shepperton Studios in 1931, when Norman Loudon, a dynamic Scottish businessman, bought Littleton Park with its surrounding 60 acre (240,000 m²) grounds, which included a beautiful stretch of the River Ash at Shepperton. Loudon was ne.
A period of four years elapsed between Series VI and VII. When the series returned, it was filmizedFilmizing is an informal term referring to the electronic process used by producers to make their videotape productions look as if they have been shot on film. The principle change involved in filmizing is deinterlacing the footage to change its motion ch and no longer in front of a live audience. Although critics praised the higher production values for Series VII, when the show returned two years later for Series VIII, it had dropped use of the filmizing process.
In the show, the Red Dwarf is a gigantic spaceship, belonging to Jupiter Mining Corporation, which, following an on-board radioactive disaster, is left to drift through deep space. Three million years later, after the radiation has dropped to a safe level, the only surviving crew member emerges from stasisStasis (pronounced STAY-sis) is a science-fiction concept akin to suspended animation. Whereas suspended animation usually refers to a greatly reduced state of life processes, stasis implies a complete cessation of these processes, which can be easily res (where he'd been placed as punishment, though his stay was intended to be only eighteen months) and is surprised to face this grave reality.
This is the slob anti-heroIn literature and film, an anti-hero is a central or supporting character that has some of the personality flaws and ultimate fortune traditionally assigned to villains but nonetheless also have enough heroic qualities or intentions to gain the sympathy o Dave Lister (played by Craig Charles). Lister speaks with a marked Scouse accent. He craves Indian food such as vindaloo curries and shami kebabs, all of which are in plentiful supply on board the ship (though the mechanics of storing curries for thousands of millennia have not been explored on the show).
Lister enjoys the company of a hologrammatic simulation of a deceased crew member Arnold J. Rimmer (the 'J' stands for Judas), played by Chris Barrie. Rimmer, Lister's room-mate before the disaster, is a humourless and status-obsessed loser, loathed by everybody on board. It was he who actually caused the radioactive disaster by poorly repairing a shielding plate on the power core, although in his defense he would have been able to do a better job if Lister hadn't been imprisoned in stasis. (Technically, the facility for simulating dead crew is reserved for high-ranking and/or essential personnel, but the ship's computer explains in an early episode that it believes company — and specifically Rimmer's company — to be essential to Lister's mental health. Lister expresses incredulity, but later implicitly admits that the computer was right, telling another character that "driving Rimmer nuts is what keeps me going"). The choice of hologram personality was rendered a moot point early in the first season; Lister almost from the start planned to find the computer disk containing the holographic backup of his ex-girlfriend Kristine Kochanski, but soon after he was activated Rimmer realized Lister would try to shut him down (the computer can only generate one hologram at a time) and hid all of the remaining holographic identity disks, somewhere where Lister would never find them. Notwithstanding his desperate desire to not be turned off, the holographic Rimmer bemoans his fate — he's dead, and his current sensibility is just a simulation of how he would feel if he were alive. In later episodes, Rimmer is also manifest as the superheroic character, Ace Rimmer.
Also accompanying Lister on his voyage back to Earth is The Cat (played by Danny John-Jules). The Cat is no ordinary cat, but a member of the species Felis sapiens, descended from a domestic cat which Lister had smuggled aboard three million years prior. The Cat is appears as a typical biped humanoid with slightly elongated canines, he retains a cat-like interest in fish and female cats, a heightened sense of smell, unbridled vanity, and cat-like obsession towards grooming and appearance, with a uniquely feline fashion sense. He also has six nipples.
The other principal character is Holly, the ship's computer with a supposed IQ of 6000 (visible as a disembodied head on the screen and played, for the first two series and in series 8, by Norman Lovett and later by Hattie Hayridge after Holly performed a 'head sex change' upon himself; Lovett is scheduled for the movie version). Holly runs most of Red Dwarfs systems despite now suffering from computer senility.
Among Holly's systems are the service droids known as skutters that clean, perform engineering tasks and function as Rimmer's hands since he cannot touch anything non-holographic.
Later on, the crew are joined by the service android Kryten (most famously played by Robert Llewellyn, but played by David Ross in his first episode) whom Lister encourages to break his altruistic programming and become a lying, cheating human like the rest of us.
Lister's longlasting crush is Kristine Kochanski, played by C. P. (Clare) Grogan. She was killed along with the rest of the crew in the first episode, and several subsequent episodes revolve around Lister attempting to bring her back, either through time travel or as a computer-generated simulation like Rimmer. In the seventh season, an alternative Kochanski from a parallel universe (played by Chloë Annett) joined the series as a regular character.
One interesting aspect of the Red Dwarf universe is that there are no aliens (much to Rimmer's disappointment). Although there is a large and bizarre mix of intelligent life within the Red Dwarf universe, all of these are in one way or another derived from Earth. Most of the strange creatures the crew encounters are GELFs: Genetically Engineered Life Forms.